Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Devil's Due"

It's 4 February 1991, and time for more Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Enterprise rushes to the aid of a Federation science station on Ventax II. The planet's local population are running rampant with mass hysteria, believing the world is about to come to an end with the return of the evil goddess Ardra. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) arrives to calm matters, only to discover that Ardra (Marta Dubois) has actually arrived.

Until now Season 4 has been an excellent year for Star Trek: The Next Generation, with several great episodes under its belt. Even the poor episodes have felt like partial failures rather than out-and-out disasters. That's sadly not the case with "Devil's Due", an incredibly weak and poorly conceived episode that feels about 25 years out of date and is an absolute chore to watch.

The Wind Rises (2013)

I have been putting off the day I would watch The Wind Rises, because it's purportedly the final feature film ever from the acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki. Once I watched it, there possibly wouldn't any any more to see. Actually going by the odds that's almost certainly untrue. He's claimed he was retiring from making films before, and accidentally made more films. In fact one estimate has him announcing his retirement on seven separate occasions in 1986 (after Laputa: Castle in the Sky) and again in 1992, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2013. True to form he's currently directing a 10-minute CGI short to screen exclusively at the Studio Ghibli Museum near Tokyo, and my gut says if he likes the CGI medium there will be a feature to follow.

For now The Wind Rises is it. It feels like an unusual film. It retains the animation style, and the beautifully observed human movements and expressions. It boasts a superb orchestral score by regular composer Joe Hisaishi. It has a remarkable warmth and emotional resonance. Beyond that it stands pretty far apart from Miyazaki's other works. There's comparatively little whimsy to the piece, and no fantastical elements. Instead its a biographical drama based on the aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi: the inventor of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane.

Picking the next Doctor Who companion

Season 10 of Doctor Who is going into production at some point in 2016 - we really don't know any more details at the moment - and that means someone is going to need to replace the recently departed Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) as the Doctor's trusty companion. Obviously there's no way of knowing who the character may be, or what actor will play them. It's also most likely going to be an entirely new character created specifically to fill the vacancy.

But what if it isn't? After all, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) made her debut in the 2006 Christmas special before unexpectedly returning to become a permanent companion in 2008. There are plenty of former guest stars who could be brought back to the series and transformed into the new companion. Here are a few potential choices.

The Pull List: 2 December 2015, Part I

Tom King appears to be one of big new stars among DC's writers. Omega Men, while not a strong seller, has been very well received by the critics, and he's been put in charge of writing their big new Batman crossover "Robin War" - the first issue of which is reviewed below. He also has a new eight-part miniseries launching this week from DC Vertigo: Sheriff of Babylon. The comic is set in 2004 and follows three disparate characters - Christopher, Nassir and Sofia - in three separate incidents across Baghdad. All three involve someone being shot and murdered, and it seems very likely that all three are connected.

This is an impeccably written crime drama with a post-war setting. The narrative is beautifully structured, with deliberate echoes from one plot thread to the other. There is a beautiful sense of time and place to the comic, and realistic characters showing both variety and depth. It does precisely what a first issue is supposed to do: hook in the reader, introduce the characters, and set up the narrative. I'm not surprised King's name is popping up everywhere at the moment. He's enormously talented.

The artwork by Mitch Gerads is well suited, reminding me quite a lot of Garry Brown's excellent work on The Massive a year or so ago. It's realistic, nicely gritty, and coloured in a way that makes the whole book look sun-bleached.

People often argue that Vertigo is a dying imprint, with its best work behind it. I've probably been guilty of saying that myself. Books like this prove us all wrong. It's fantastic. (5/5)

DC Vertigo. Written by Tom King. Art and colours by Mitch Gerads.

Under the cut: reviews of Magic Whistle, Robin War and Star Wars.

Doctor Who: "The Beast Below"

It's 10 April 2010, and time for more Doctor Who.

For her first trip in the TARDIS, the Doctor (Matt Smith) takes Amy (Karen Gillan) in the future and to the Starship UK, a giant city-ship containing the population of the United Kingdom after the Earth was ravaged by solar flares. As soon as they arrive it's clear something is going wrong, but finding out the truth leads them to a terrible dilemma. The fate of the British people lies in the Doctor's hands.

Back when it first aired I wasn't tremendously impressed with "The Beast Below". It felt too rushed and half-formed, and pitched at a younger age bracket than the series had been doing up to that point. I'm now coming back to it five years later, and while I still think it's a little undercooked I do find myself appreciating it an awful lot more. It's an oddly old-fashioned episode in many respects, and a little out of place. You could pull out Matt Smith and Amy Pond and replace them with Sylvester McCoy and Ace, shoot in cheaply in Television Centre in 1988 and it would arguably be a more effective story for it.

Stand and Deliver (1988)

Maths teacher Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) arrives at a Los Angeles high school. He's supposed to be teaching computing, but repeated budget cuts have left him to teach mathematics to a group of under-achieving rebellious teens. Refusing to give up on a challenge, he decides to not only teach them but push them to excel, facing up against his students, his school principal and the educational testing service on the way.

Stand and Deliver is a 1988 drama directed by Ramón Menéndez, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Tom Musca. In many respects it's a dreadfully clichéd film, replete with corny teen rebels, stereotypical inspirational speeches and training montages. Thankfully in other respects it's a rather uplifting and entertaining work, due to restrained direction, an authenticity of character, and a couple of really great performances in the cast.

At the centre of the film, and acting as its greatest strength, is Edward James Olmos. He plays a character here quite unlike his other works. Escalante is a little awkward, with a bad comb-over and a small physicality. He sort of stumbles and mutters his way through the classes, making embarrassing jokes and pressing the buttons of the class' biggest trouble-makers. He looks all the world like somebody who wouldn't survive a whole day with that class, but Olmos really sells it and makes him into a likeable and inspirational figure. He convinces us that he could turn a class of miscreants and slackers around.

Creed (2015)

Halfway through Ryan Coogler's new film Creed there's a scene of a boxing match. The two boxers tap gloves, the bell rings, and they begin to warily circle one another. They start to get in some hits, back and forth. Blood is drawn. Tempers rise. The bell rings, and the boxers go back to their corners to recover and listen to their trainers. They head back out again, punching each other with a fierce brutality.

Somewhere into this scene it becomes apparent that the camera angle hasn't changed. The camera moves fluidly around the ring, from mid-shot to close-up, highlighting the fight, the characters' reactions, the audience and so on, but it's all in a single take. These fighters are getting beaten-up and bruised. There's blood on their faces. That one complex tracking shot just keeps going and going.

The impressive part of the scene is not the technical achievement, although it's worth noting that it was achieved in a single take without editing tricks and with a roving make-up crew diving into the ring and applying the blood to each fighter when the camera was pointed in another direction. The impressive part is just how immersive and emotionally effective these sorts of camera techniques make the fight. I don't think I've seen a better realisation of a boxing match in a film before, and that includes Scorsese's legendary Raging Bull or any of Avildsen and Stallone's six Rocky films. That second comparison is the key one, because of course Creed is a sequel to those Rocky films. It's an enormously welcome and pitch-perfect continuation of one of Hollywood's best movie franchises.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The Wounded"

It's 28 January 1991, and time for more Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Enterprise is called in to help when a Starfleet vessel, the USS Phoenix, goes rogue and starts blowing up starships within the Cardassian Union. While Picard (Patrick Stewart) attempts to track the Phoenix down and bring its captain to justice, Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) is forced to face his own antagonism towards the Cardassians.

The birth of Deep Space Nine continues. Last episode Chief Miles O'Brien received an unexpected burst of character development and gained a wife. This week that development continues, fleshing out his back story and introducing the Cardassians - the alien civilization that will come pivotal to Deep Space Nine. Now I don't think for a second these episodes were developed with a sequel series in mind, but in about a year's time when Deep Space Nine is being put together they clearly became key influences. I do wonder if there was talk about signing Colm Meaney up as a Next Generation regular: there was some work done towards replacing Wil Wheaton with a new actor, most likely a female helmsman, but it does seem reasonable that boosting O'Brien's profile may have crossed executive producer Rick Berman's mind.